A compelling mix of new-media artwork is found in the juried show “Art-astrophe: The 5th Annual
Ignition Art Exhibition” in the Shot Tower Gallery of the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education
Center.

Presented by the electronic- and digital-arts lab the Fuse Factory, the show includes
performance pieces, social-practice documents, animated images, digital manipulations and
interactive installations. Every piece becomes both a celebration of and meditation on the role of
technology in our lives.

Ian Smith-Heisters’ video
Threshold Hack is hypnotic. As a dancer moves across the screen, he disappears and
reappears in a star field or flash of fairy dust. Generated by an optical-flow algorithm, the
dancer is obscured — disintegrating as the computer reinterprets the dance.

A video documentation of a dance performance, Doo Sung Yoo’s
Vishtauroborg 3.1 relies on mystery, myth and the supernatural. The title is a compound
word formed from “Vishnu, minotaur, robot, organ and cyborg.” The painted white human figure,
filmed at night, wears elaborate robotic appendages. His dance is strange, uncomfortable, seductive
and threatening.

Using glass-plate negatives from the Library of Congress, Kate Shannon’s
Construction/Destruction consists of six digital animations presented on flat-screen
televisions. The negatives were records produced by the Wright brothers and taken during the first
moments of flight.

Scott Andrew and Jonathan Armistead’s
Glimmer — featuring a mirrored disco ball, lights and music — is both an installation and
a performance piece.

In Jesse Hemminger’s
The Sauerkraut Project, science, food and chance intersect. Powered by the sauerkraut
fermentation process, the piece features miniature robots that scoot around, making abstract
graphite drawings.

A fusion of technology and Promethean ritual,
How To Improve the World (You will only make things worse) is a collaborative project
between Steve Gurysh and Craig Fahner. Mixing video performances with historical documentation, the
two engage in a series of staged events that parody and mythologize Western society’s demand for
energy and obsession with progress.